Even Angels Lose Their Way
by Mess
Summary: A fusion. A fall. A Paradox. After the end of Chrono Chross, Kid goes in search of Serge, but someone else is just as determined as she is...
1. Paradox

Her name, if it could indeed be called a name, was Schala Zeal. It was also, at the same time, not her name - and nor had it ever been. A fundamental of existance smattered across the fourth dimension with little care for the fragile order of the third. Something damaged below the molecular levels - subtly, poisonously different on planes where microscopes and PET scans and devils fear to tread. One of those universal quirks pointing to the fact that the drama of the planet might very well be a comedy... or at least an exercise in surrealistic painting. 

For her name was Princess Schala Zeal - Heir to the Dead Floating Kingdom, the Martyr of Mammon, and Devourer of Time. And her name was also Kid Ashtear. These were not equal alisaes sharing a blue-eyed throne, no seperate but equal definitions. No - these were nothing less then completely unrelated defining factors enough to make apples and oranges close familiar cousins seperated by a trifling. The wall between Kid Ashtear and Schala Zeal was proud and strong and built with the bricks of fourteen thousand years minus sixteen. 

That was why she was a paradox.   
  
  


**Even Angels Lose Their Way**   
01 - paradox   
New Porre City, 2013 - Unified FATEed Timestream (Lavos Entity, Chronal Trigger/Cross ++) 

**_par·a·dox (pair-ah-docks)_**   
_n. _   
_Etymology: Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think_   
_1.A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true._   
_2.One exhibiting inexplicable or contradictory aspects._   
_3.An assertion that is essentially self-contradictory, though based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises. _   
_4.A statement contrary to received opinion. _   
  
  


A little known fact: paradoxes can most certainly still feel pain, despite the rather lofty nature of their malady. 

"OI! Bloody _hell_!" 

Then again, it would take alot _not_ to feel pain when you're suddenly and forcibly ejected from the four-dimensional edge of the timestream after unification with your immortal Lavos-augumented genetic clone. Or if, when landing, you kind of - y'know, tripped, and skinned your knee, and lots of people were staring at you bleed on the sidewalk, which you .. how do you know what a sidewalk is? There aren't any sidewalks in Guardia Kingdom, the ruins of Guardia Kingdom, or El Nido - well, at least not ones that are concrete, which... okay, you don't know what concrete is either. Except that it's grey and rough and you've never seen it before but you have, haven't you? Well of course you have. Because you're fourteen thousand years old and capable of bending the fabric of time to suit your whims as well as in a close personal relationship with the planet's biggest, meanest, and all-around nastiest alien parasite. That's why. But.. bloody hell, no you're not! You're Kid! Kid Ashtear, that's what you are - and any bastard that says otherwise is gonna get his ass kicked so hard he'll kiss the moons! And all that.. darkness everywhere forever and - is nonsense, and you do not know what a sidewalk is since you have no way of looking forward through a wormhole like it's some kind of movie screen just for your own twisted immortal entertainmant and.. WHY the bloody hell are all these people staring, can't they see that Serge is missing!? 

Yup. 

Hurts. 

Pretty damn confusing too. 

"What the hell?" Breathe Kid, breathe. You ARE Kid, yup, and you're not gonna think about all that darkness shit or the way you could feel the lava/time/space/dimension below you flowing like lollipop-red liquid/solid snack treat... nope, nope you're not. You're gonna stay sane and Find Serge. Because if you find Serge, Serge will make things make sense. For someone whose very existance was even less plausible than her own, Serge was surprisingly good at that. Especially since he never bloody _talked_. 

"Where is this? Who are you people? I.. oi, mate, I'm talking to you. Hello? Hell-LO!?" 

Serge was not there. There were lots of people lookin', _staring_ at her, and suddenly her skirt felt too damn short by far. Like someone had cut off her ability to exist in this open space at the knees. Maybe kicked it for good measure. There eyes were mirrored and amazed, reflecting back her own confusion in the way their bodies whirled around her, and out to the oblivion that was beyond her line of site and thus her personal sphere of existance. 

Serge wasn't there. Why wasn't Serge there? Serge had been there before. Serge had helped her... oh, but Serge hadn't been there for years, and had never been there - and fuck, no, she was not bloody listening to that side. Kick it's ass so hard it'll fly strait out of her mind, yeah, that's it. And the more she turned around, the more it looked the same - those mirrors, mirrors all arond mocking her with patches of sky that shouldn't be here, beause she was in the dark zone with Serge, wasn't she, and they were... 

Free? 

Free. In the middle of New Porre City. it just was - New Porre City, that is. No questions asked. She was too busy, looking for Serge... 

Panic (I do not panic)? 

Where IS he (I do not care)? 

No one was answering, and if they had she wouldn't have understood. Linguistic shift. The largest city in the empire.. maybe if there was some history professor near.. but no they wouldn't, they wouldn't, and they were all scampering off not, and the world was turning again without her permission. Mirror, sky mirror, sky, mirror, sky.. where was Serge? Oh gods, what if something _happened_... 

"This isn't bloody rocket science. Need help here, I do, and you lot are..." 

Blue and white and blue and white. They were making fun of her - organic and inorganic dancing all around. None of the faces were blue and white - oh, no. They were boring peach and brown, boring boring, nothing to do with him, not outside of... 

"Serge? You there, mate?" her voice was getting creaky, and fine, because the ground just wasn't cooperating. And Serge would know her anywhere. They were both paradoxes. He'd understand... (comprehend fourteen thousand year in the temporal gutter? Don't be silly. That's not possible)."We've got ourselves into a bit of jam here, we have.. Serge? Serge!?" 

Was she begging (I would have begged mother, but not for him)? 

She was crying - and it was hot like the lava before it pools at the edge of time. But she'd sworn she'd never cry.. if only she could.. (I cried all the time when Mother started to rape the world. It's alright. Cry. You can now, since you're me). If she coudl find him, she coudl be ashamed, and that would be okay too. 

At the very moment the pavement became so close, so black that she could kiss it, she did not hear the cars screech to a halt all about her. In this instance, the motions of time had stopped all on their own. 

*** 

When you start out in this world, there's light. 'Cause before light there's always darkness, an it makes sense what with obstetrics and all bein' what they are. So it makes sense too that I was born here from the darkness at the edge of time. 

Hmmmm. 

"Are you alright, miss?" 

His light. That's the light that's in my eyes - scorching me retinas and turning things all hazy and white and not ulike he was, when he chose to be, when the creatures in the darkness crept out from under the bed to threaten me. 

"What's her name again?" 

I should have a name now, shouldn't I? 

"Doe. Jane Doe." 

No. That's not my name. I know that right away. I also know that I am very old, and very wise, and very foolish. I'm old and young at the same time. How can that be? I am probably in shock - or at least I was. My hands are cold, and the sheets are very scratchy. This is not a real matress but a pallet, and the bars stick into my back. 

I would turn. 

Ugh. 

But I cannot. My body is chained by forces far more malevolent than gravity. It is traitorous. 

"Oh.. nother one of those crackheads out of seventy-fifth, eh? Looks like Lolita here was selling something other than dope..." 

Crackhead? Lolita? No, my name is not Lolita either. Neither of their hands are on me, but I can feel their warmth above. Scratch voice and the smoother one, the one that could crawl down your throat and work you inside out if you let it. If I knew who I was, I might want to let it. But I won't now, because I can't really make out his voice, and I would be betraying me dignity in some way I can't understand by bonding to that kahlua tenor like some ducking to it's mother. I'm no sad little girl who likes pretty little boys. 

Let us review. 

This place smells strange. It smells like blood, and metals, and bile, and other unpleasant things. What wafts on the air most of all is a sad, languising lunch and the seaside scent of people crying - which is not really a scent at all, but a feeling I can't get out of the back of my head, and is probably normal for none of them to care. But I do not gag because of it. Instead, it seems almost bland to me. 

How awful! 

How boring. 

How terrible! 

How necessary. 

Gasp!!!! 

Yawn. 

... sigh. 

This is confusing. There are two morals in my head - angel and devil on my shoulder, and both of them have cute blue eyes. Two conflicting opinions on the matter so equal in strength I'm not sure what they mean. Must everything for me be an absolute choice between equal and opposite sins? I don't like that at all. I am too old/young for that by far. 

"Will you shut up? For god's sake, she's just a kid." 

"... Kid?" 

Kid? 

Well that's something right there. Kid is a brash tomboy who probably wears less clothing than her sis' would like her to. If you bother Kid, Kid will kick your ass, and Kid would probably not be laying on this uncomfortable, too well-lit cot in the middle of somewhere stagnant instead of up and looking for him, because he has answers even if he can't remember any of what happened. Kid is a doer, not a thinker, and Kid is horribly terribly flawed and tomboyish and Human. She has ordinary blonde hair and a middle toe that's longer than the big, which she is very embarassed about and would rather not anyone see. Her hair is stringy from runnaing about on the coean all the time, her body scarred from fighting monsters of the lesser persuation, and her ribs show almost sickly under the crop top she is no longer wearing. 

Kid cares more than anything else in the world about a boy she calls her 'best mate in the world', which terrifies her on some level, because she has the nagging feeling that he would probably make it just fine without her. Everyone else has left her already. He has a girlfriend who's hard and pretty and solidly ordinarily beautiful like a chunk of rainbow seashell, and she could make him stay behind instead of sailing the old waves of time killing monsters and having Adventures. She could be his best mate too. And that's not right at all, because they're partners in crime, mate! The unbeatable team! Serge n' Kid, the Assassins of Time! Nobody works together better than them, an' they've got _lots_ to do even though this whole dimension business is worked out. 

She's never had a friend like that before. 

Her big sister is dead, and she wants revenge, but there's nothing to get revenge against anymore and so she is just very focused and very angry with looks to shatter glass but going nowhere. Lost medusa. Now there is nothing to center on but finding him, since she has lost herself in her other self. And so she will, because her humanity has caused the death of anyone else she might care to find. 

Yes. That is Kid. And I am Kid, or so it seems. Very well then. 

"Miss? She's waking up - see if you can find any relatives." He has noticed that my eyes are open.. blood hell, I don't wanna be sedated! I wanna get the hell out of here! Serge is me best mate, he might be lying out there bleedin' not knowing where the hell he is and.. 

"How am I supposed to find some random runaway hooker's rela-" scratch. Scratch. Instinct tells me that this'uns a bad one. Kind you don't wanna be anywhere near a back alley on a dark night if you're not the invincible Kid Zeal, y'know what I mean? Soul all eaten up by cynicism an' sucked dry. Never know what those blokes will pull. (I have just said that I am invincible in inner monologue, and this bears analysis. Kid gets her bravado from this Lucca character. I am Kid. I have bravado? I suppose I do now. Bravado it is then! The invincible Kid Zeal... 'luv'!) 

"Just go, okay? Take it nice and easy, Janey. You're alright now - you're in the hospital." 

"Kid... my name..." 

Is Kid. 

"Hmmm?" 

"My name is Kid. Kid Zeal." 

Zeal. 

Kid Zeal. 

Oi. So I'm Kid, eh? But I'm also Zeal, that's true enough. Genetics and all that, even if you've gotta know I've never put much stock in blood n' rubbish. I dare ya ta tell me that Lucca ain't me mum and keep yer balls! But I've also got another mum, I have, a mum I don't much care for. Crazy lot she was part of. All blue hair and strange dealings. Her fault I'm in all this mess. So like I said - I may be Zeal, but don't you dare call HER me mum, 'cause Zeal might wanna forgive her, but Kid sure as hell wouldn't, and like I said, I'm Kid, eh? 

Zeal. Zeal's a gel named Schala, who loves pretty dresses and cute kittens and ickle kiddies and the like. Schala had blue hair, an' it was always perfect when it was up, because she was a princess right? But I've never put much stock in princesses either. Princess took me mum Lucca's best friend Chrono away from her, right, and then not a _word_ of apology or anything. And Lucca always said it was rubbish an she was fine, but I could tell she wasn't, since I'm the one she raised from the beginning. Spent alot of time with her machines, she did. Too much time, some days, when you could tell she wasn't up to seein' them all at the palace. 

Still a princess though, she is, and she's also a monster right? Because she was too weak to fight and just up and let herself die for everybody else, 'cept it worked out opposite of how she planned in the end, see? Giving up is stupid and weak, and dying is _selfish_.. guess I'm a selfish person, eh? Ended up living fourteen thousand years in a void full of soap-bubble dimensional rejects and tryin' to eat timestreams and such. No good deed goes unpunished, the Great Genius Lucca Ashtear always used to say. Schala's brother's a huge nutter too, I understand, all obsessed an' not healthy with her disappearin' thing... but that's okay, 'cause she's really worried about him, and loves him lots. 

That's the kinda girl she is, see. Loving people. All the time.. givin' em poems and embarrasin' rubbish on girly paper to tell them the meaning of friendship. Or at least she was, before she became half alien, and then she was just bitter lots eh? But non crazy-alien freakness Zeal has lotsa.. manners and poise an' everything Lucca said I was s'posed to be, which kinda make sense now, but still.. its' wierd, 'cos I'm not really like that all the time am I? Or I don't wanna be. Bloody boring, sittin' around being nice and helpin' puppies and knitting sweaters and ... I dunno. Studying, I guess. 

Can't really do anything about it, though, an' I know all this stuff about her in the back of my head. So much it's confusing, cos' she'd watch those bubbles like the vidscreens Lucca used t'make so we brats would leave her alone when she had important work to do. I'm Zeal. Right. So I better bloody well get used to it. 

No wonder I was getting all confused before. There are lots of memories in fourteen thousand years. Best not to go there, Zeal. 

"Kid Zeal!" 

That's m'name. The one doctor I don't mind is calling out to the other. I suspect they'll try and look me up in some kinda computer. 

"Yu-hunh." 

Hell... I gotta get out of here and find Serge so's we can think of a way out of this, right? Knock this bloke out I guess... but I can't do that, since it's not _moral_ and such. Hell. Somewhere in this brain of mine I know how to get into those computers too - make it look like I exist officially - but my name sounds made-up to him anyways, so I'll get of light I guess. Don't wanna get dragged off to some lunatic's house because his kid's named my name and we've gotta whole huge_ 'nother_ problem on our hands. 

Serge. Right. Serge can get me outta here - he probably followed me or brought me in, just like when we used to get knocked out by monsters. Like with that set in Terra Tower. Nasty business, that. But best mates gotta watch each other's backs an drag 'em to medics and use up the last Tablets on 'em- it's a given. 

"Oi.. mate. Yeah, you there - where's Serge?" See, I can ask that, 'cause Serge is unforgettable with that freakish natural blue hair o' his that I never _could_ get right with all those dies in the Old Kingdom. My hand feels so... light, though. No gloves!? They prolly took the rest of my... damn pervert doctors. This thing feels like a... like a... dress. Which ain't upsetting, I guess, but wierd after such a long time. And perverted (Not that it's their fault, the poor men)! Just cos I'm young and cute an' dress proper for the heat and all they get _ideas_, like... it's improper! "You gotta find him... he's here, right? Inna hospital? 'Cause if he was taken too.. he's gotta be in the hospital, right? Since this is a hospital?" 

Making sense is tertiary, y'undersand, 'cos I'm pretty sure they've got me doped up on something and there's shiny little overexposed spots running across me - er, _my_ - corneas now. Serge better get here soon an' make them see the reason in raising the bed, because I'm really not up to it and he can be all scary looking with that big blade staff thing o' his. Well, scary for Serge. Serge ain't _really_ looked scary in his life, I'll wager. Fer a champion monster-hunter and world-saver and war-wager and Arbiter o' Fate, my best mate is a bleedin' teddybear. 

"Of course it's a hospital, miss" 

Oi! No reason to talk down... I am a perfectly resonable human being, and this is really not the time. 

"I wanna get out of this...," a draft "... bugger all! You bloody pervert doctors..." 

"Now yourest. Your blood-oxygen levels are all over the map. Just take a nice little nap, and I'm sure we'll find your - brother? Serge, you said? - very soon. You just worry about getting better... Mike, run a search for a Serge Zeal in the database..." 

Ow. A pinch! Silver, and long, and hurting... bloody.. NO! 

"Serge Zeal. Riiiiiight. 'Zeal'. Zealous at _what_? That some new call service?" 

Gotta stay awa.... 

When did they get so far away? The scratch man mand and the liquid man? Liquid, mmmm... just like water... 

"Miiiike... Jesus, you're not a freaking cop! Just find the poor kid's parents if you can. These street kids are _fragile_... " 

I must... 

*** 

The woman walked into the building. It was a hospital. The floors were shiny, and it smelled like vomit. 

Not a very flowery description, but nothing about the woman called to mind flowers anyways. Or any sort of foliage, for that matter. Her eyes were cold and hard and red as garnet and her head covered with a felt cap of some unknown name and fashion. The dress she wore was simple, and blended with the walls. And yet... the woman walked into the building not like she owned it, but it didn't matter at all in the slightest to her existance, and as such it had better get the hell out of her way. 

Having more important things to do that notice airs and projections of strength, the emergency room staff did no notice that and invited the suit with the dangerous gait strait into their parlour. 

"Are you here for.. Kid Zeal, is it?" 

The doctor wore white, and responded on rote. New Porre was not a safe place - and as with most major metropolitan areas sported only rare, vague pockets of happiness. The woman was the sort of woman who used people, and he was fairly certain in all the arrogance of experience that he knew what she wanted from him. 

"Oh, yes, she does like those silly nicknames," the woman gestured midly, waving about the pair of sunglasses she had just removed like a banner. A shrug- the universal gesture of helplessness, looked somehow out of place on her shoulders. "Her name is Schala Ashtear, and I'll be happy to take her from here." 

"Schala Ashtear?" the other doctor questioned. His green eyes had no yet turned to jade - or if they had, then he put on a very good act indeed. Was he worried? That was.. sweet. Like something out of a telanovella. 

"I'm her sister. It's perfectly alright. Would you like to see my credentials?" producing the necessary documents and keycards, the oman relaxed herlself. The guilty are the nervous. "Because I can, most assuredly, produce the paperwork if you require..." 

"No, no that's quite alright ma'am," the first man wanted the girl out of there, and noone could blame him. There were always more important things to do. More important heads and hearts to heal. A drop of water in the bucket cannot poison the lot. 

Feh. Humans. 

"Tell me - do you know someone named 'Serge'?" 

But the other had different ideas. 

"Serge, you say?" and suddenly, this vague little scene draw into focus. Garnet turned to ruby, the colors became more vivid, and her voice - her voice was altogether sharper in technicolor surround sound. 

"Errr.. yes." They did not wish to notice this. Which was really terribly sad. Their profiles might have earned a place in the chronicles of angels. " The girl seemed in a great deal of distress, and kept asking where we could find a Serge. If you know who she's talking about it would probably do her good to see the man. She was almost hyperventilating... we had to sedate her." 

"Ah yes - Serge. Her best friend, " the woman nodded, rehearshing infront of the mirror that was here and not here and held all the arcane, sacred secrets of the application of her makeup. As well it should. The demystification of beauty was a plague on this planet. "He too was injured in the car accident, but not nearly as severly as Schala was when she went missing. I'll take her to him right away, if you sign the releases now." 

"Very well, miss..." 

"Arcange." 

"Arcange?" 

"Arcange de la Septieme," the woman nodded, died green tresses bobbing in a nonexistant wind. 

"Whatever. Right this way... Madam." 

Madame...? 

She did not like the implications of that assumption as to her .. station, be he was of no consequence anyways. None of them were. It takes a brillinat mind to grasp a paradox. 

***   


Warm. Warm and it smells like toast. Dun like that. Mmmm.. fuzzy. Fuzzy fuzzy comfy not like toast. Toast smells like burnt, and burnt is a scar on the heart. 

"You were in temporal shock." The new voice ain't fuzzy, that's fer damn sure. It's cold. And flat. And pulled her back to wakefulness from the blissful sleep of the confused - those whome chaos partners at the ball and everything makes sense in a cinderella dress when that day the prince _has _come. 

The new voice is focused, and to douse the phoneix of vision there is no light. The New Woman has too much rounge, too much eye shadow, too much green at her temples and black on her lashed. But somehow she makes it look exotic, and frightning, instead of the clown's weight in beauty it might have been on anyone else. Perhaps that's to do with the red eyes. Yes. That must be it. Bloody creepy, those are, as they fade into view. Something in 'em ain't like Karsh's used to be. 

The strange woman, new woman, smells like toast and sandalwood perfume. She does not belong in a hospital. 

"Gods.. not this again. Who're you? Where is this?" 

Head pounds - it's like that when the walls of your skull keep crashin' in. And the drugs are wearing off now, so everything's too clear.. tingling little cuts on the nervous system mingling into a dull ache. Woman's inna chair, that's it, while she's tucked you into bed. Everything here's green and pink and flowers - granny furniture, too damn old, but new if you new from the other side of the tunnel. 

Brush the hair back from yer eyes, and look - like right at her, 'cause you've gotta take this kind head on. 

"You do not recognize me, my old enemy? And now.. now I am hurt. Hurt! You wound me to the core, ma cherie!" 

Old enemy? Crazy witch. Brought Kid here for a bit of fun, eh? All thought she was some kind of harlot here.. no doubt when she was in a four-poster iron doodad of a bed right now. Vases of flowers an' such.. what, they thought she'd be high class? Bring it on, you bloody bastards. Kid Zeal's had one HELL of a day. 

"What the... bloody hell, I don't need this right now." 

Shove off the sheets. It's cold, but you're in your old clothes, so grin n' bear it up mate. 

"My heart bleeeeds at your suffering, Zeal. But we are one and the same, don't you see? I used to try and help you.. I use to think that I was doing the right thing. That by giving him to you I'd make him happy. " Is it too much to ask that _something_ make some sense around here? Bloody hell.. lady's chewing you out for some crackpot reason and you've gotta get the hell outta here so you can.. .figure out what to do once you're the hell out of here. Yeah. Plan! "But you're nothing but a disgusting traitor, and I should slay you right here and now. Do you think I couldn't?" 

Slay....? 

Oh, for the love of... 

Your muscles ache. Everything aches. Bloody.. d'yer got a Tablet on you? Smile n' nod and stall for time and less pain, m'girl. 

"You used me, Zeal," Lady seems to be in a trance. Like.. creepy-like. She's not even lookin' at you, is she? In come kind of a trace - starin' out at the walls and the window and the birds you can hear outside like she doesn't even see them. What the hell kind of hospital were you at!? Her voice.. her voice is _angry_. "You convinced me that I'd be making him happy. But I'm the only one who can make him happy, and you're nothing. I deserve to be happy! Not.. not someone like you... after what you've done. Even worse than taking him from me OR the Frozen Flame! The Dragon Gods left a message for me.. I finally figured it out... did you think I wouldn't remember? " 

"I sure as hell know I don't." 

"But you made a miscalculation," Oh yeah. Angry. More'n angry. This is your voice, isn't it? The tone you used to berate Lynx? The tone that called for blood and death and vengance (which is wrong, so wrong). The tone of curses and hexes and honor. This is the timbre and descant of lost souls and zombie servants, damned to walk the earth with but one thought in their minds for all eternity. And isn't she pacing? Isn't that green, green skirt slithering this way? 

Shit. 

"You forgot that blood is thicker than quantum physics, and we paradoxes don't have to always stick together.. TRAITOR. You never thought I'd try to find out after your little comments in Guardia, did you? Friends? Us? I don't know what I was thinking when we made that little pact during the First Porre Occupation... " 

"Guardia...?" back up in to the pllows. She presses onwards. This is not a duel but a siege. "But I ain't been to Guardia in..." 

Little bird, great bird, bird of prey whispers in your ear and tell so you so what you need to know with no reason behind it. Is she not hunching to sweep in for the kill? Her lips are at your earrings, and you can retreat no further little mouse-that-roared. There's a lamp beside you and it burns in the depths of her pupils. Light is playing tricks again - it's such a kidder. "And now you're here. And you're _weak, _my old 'friend'. I don't know why, and I don't care. And now I'm going to kill you, and then he'll be able to come back and everything will be fine. I'll have a purpose again. Do you know what that's like? Have you ever felt adrift, with fourteen thousand years trying to devour this word with your disgusting, vile energy that I once thought could be the melody to the harmony? " 

The melody and the harmony. Flicker flicker. Look to the light, and get an idea - be devious and shut up the part that just wants to be nie and make friends and watch rainbows, 'cause she's not needed. 

Serge. The melody and the harmony. She almost bite you - those are _fangs_... And birds are but the apeish cousings of... 

"It's you.... I can't believe it's you. What have you done with him!? Why is he missing?" 

Dragonite. She's done something! That bitch! That's why he's not here! It all makes so much sense and _now_ look who's angry. Schala. Schala. Schala, Lavos loves you. Blessed daughter full of grace. 

The cap is off now, and you can see it. Those fins instead of ears stuffed beneath something shaped so diffrent and yet so the same. Dragonite. Dragonite! That which lives for eternity and was never ever born. 

Harle of the Seventh Moon - Phantom Orb - was also a paradox. 

"Zut alors, ma cherie! It eez - how do you say - zee judgement hour? Zey have all forgotten zee elements, zee love of the planet, zee scraps of my world.. but I haven't. I have NOT. I will not be suspected when you just.. disappear in zee blackness, non?" 

A paradox, just like you. This doesn't make sense. With the Melody and the Harmony - she is supposed to have vanished from the planes of memory into whatever Lavos-forsaken egg spawned her. 

"Harle. You are such a bloody_ lunatic_." 

Look to the light, and edge your hand towards that lamp. It bounces off your amulet, glowing blue where it smashed as you bring it down on the back of the Seventh Dragon's head. 

And you've had quite enough of this. Spring up, for god's sake! Get to yer feet! RUn to teh door. Harle is bloody dangerous, and now there's murder in the lashings of her hands. 

"Unless... I understand, now," she growls into the floor. She's starin' at your pendant like it's a snake or something. Back away. Back away. "You skipped through time... you did not sympasize wit my search for ma chere Serge.. you skipped through time to find him! You nezer had to suffer, to wait... not at all! Merde! You kept zee amulet all along and you have tricked me twice. Come back here, you harlot! You traiteur! Paradox! You are nozing like me!" 

Well, at least _someone _knows what the hell is going on. Even as that someone fades into the distance and you dash down the hallways looking blindly for an exit tended to by an little old man in a uniform. 

"You stay the hell away from me, you psychopath!" 

And now you're out the door. You've gotta think. This is one too many paradoxes. The impossible has happened and it's hunting you _down_. 

The Great Genius Lucca Ashtear's plan had not been perfect. 

Oh, hell... 


	2. Fact

There are very few quantifiable facts in this universe. Real _confirmable_ facts, that is. Everything else is so relative you might as well not bother mentioning it, unless you're God or a Goddess or Orpheus the Universal Serpent or something. Or a daughter of Lavos twice over, y'know, coz I like to think I know what's what. 

Right. 

So let's take, for example, that basic substance of life that we call 'air', and the manner in which we ingest the compounds within. D'you know if you're really breathing air? Or do you just _think_ you're breathing air? Maybe it's really water and you don't know because the universe exists inside of a raindrop in the twelfth dimension and we're really all automatons of the great dreamer that is fate, anyways. 

Dragonites would call that being the Planet. Pleasant nightmares, mate. 

Uh - yeah. Whatevah. Point is that like I said, there are very few confirmable facts in the universe... if you ask them philosophy blokes with all that relativity shit runnin' through their heads (heh - I _so_ psyched ya ). Schala coulda been a philosopher, since she'da thought that disagreein' with anyone would make her awful and hateful and mean and philosophers luv more than anything to be 'open' to stupid possibilities instead of up and doin' stuff. 'Cept even _she_ took a chance and up and offed herself at the end, so there you go. I was never that lame atfer all. And Kid Zeal? Kid Zeal and this dagger says that philosophers talk out of their arses, and there are lots and lots and _lots_ of confirmable facts in the universe, an' if you just think em through you're halfway to an answer already. 

So. Facts. When you've just been spat out into the time stream like so much stale gum, facts are good. Like starch or something - helping you hold up and get yer bearings back. 

Fact #1 - Harle is a nutcase. And I don't mean like before, when she was all obsessed with Serge and devious and putting on wierd accents to cover up that hissing sound she's always making and tryin' to manipulate the world into a fun new humanless epoch (dressed as a bloody clown no less... but we must all accept each other for our differences no matter what). Now, though... now she's just a screechin' _loony_. 

Er, mentally handicapped person. 

Bollocks.   
  
  


**Even Angels Lose Their Way**   
02 - fact   
New Porre City, 2013 - Unified FATEd Timestream (Lavos Entity, Chronal Trigger/Cross ++) 

**_fact (fahkt)_**   
_n._   
_Etymology: Latin factum, from neuter of factus, past participle of facere_   
_1.Knowledge or information based on real occurrences_   
_2.a)Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed_   
_ b)A real occurrence; an event_   
_ c)Something believed to be true or real_   
_3.A thing that has been done, especially a crime_   
_4.Law: The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence_   
  
  


Fact #2 - Harle is not supposed to be here. Harle was _supposed_ to have merged with the Dragon God and gotten melted into their big ol' mobile computer blob. Except.. she was never _really_ a Dragon God, was she? She was like Dragon God Junior Espionage Model, eh? So she couldn'tve been. But then if she was never part of the Dragon God, her memories woulda gotten erased like the rest of 'em, right? Although she was never like the rest of 'em either - all those people like Norris an' what have you. Part of that temporal freakshow that was Dinopolis, not one of them descendants of the Time Crash. There was only ever one Harle in both dimensional fragments after all. 

Hell, a bloody overgrown genetically enhanced Reptite fabricated from the stuff of another dimension to be mother earth's version of the secret police is what _she _is. So her memories wouldn't be erased by the Chrono Cross since the only dimensions united and wiped clean-like were the one with Serge an' the one without him... what'd Lucca call em? FATEd Timestream A and FATEd Timestream B. She was part of whatever human-free zone Dinopolis came from. Heh. Lucca always liked her project titles. Like yours truly - Project Kid. 

Okay, revise Fact #2. 

Ahem. 

Fact #2 - Harle is still alive, still packing heat, and actually supposed to be here. An' apparently reeeeally pissed off at me too, though I've got no clue why. Still in love with Serge too I gather from her insane rambling. That's bloody brilliant. Oi - _Leena_'s better than psycho lizard gel (except she's really just misunderstood, and I shouldn't judge her that much, because she's probably very lonely and a nice person deep deep down inside). 

Fact #3 - Fact #1 + Fact#2 = Bad. 

*** 

Ribcage heaving, knees still skinned, and with a machete she'd.. errr.. freed from the faschist repression of the local corner store, Kid Zeal hugged a corner. Or rather, _the_ corner, because there weren't really any other suitably shady corners in sight. Streetlights had that effect on things - all glowing and orange and awful. Flickerly, unreliable candles make the thief's heart grow fonder (well, not that she'd really steal anything that she didn't really really really need, right. Because that's wrong and whatnot. Now. Right. Damn conscience.) Or.. something. 

In dark, shadow corners it's easier to make out light. No particular reason why - or maybe there was, but Kid thought it was mostly human nature. So she saw the cop car quite clearly speeding around the corner, and heading strait past being at her. Damn good luck, that. This alley was a dead-end. 

There was a square out there. Lots of squares in this place. Big polygon buildings of glass - no domes yet, just all angles and the like with the air still breathable. A good sign for Serge, at least. Bad news being that even though the night air runnin' suprisingly fresh on her skin was non-toxic, there were enough people in New Porre City to make looking for her best mate about as enjoyable as looking not for a needle in a haystack, but a needle somewhere in _ten_ haystacks with rats that bit and the like. Harle bein' the rat, of course. Stupid bitch. 

It was easy to swear about Harle, even though a part of her felt disturbingly bad because of the cops chasing her. Kid Zeal - assaulter of women with stupid accents an' runaway hooker that needs help to solve her shatterin' life issues n' all. Hooker? If she wasn't so busy running from the law shed'a kicked their asses _so_ hard.... 

Patches of orange light tangoed an amateurish beauty with the streetscape, birthing an odd reflected glow in the sky. Different watching and being there, y'see. It never felt much like a labyrinth when you were watching it from the bubbles, and it always kinda skipped over those gross winos huddles in the corner. Not proper viewing for a young lady of taste (or a baby world devourer) that. And damn did it smell nasty. No stars in this place either - not a good sign. 

Well, that and the barking. For the love of... they'd set out _dogs_. Make that needle in a haystack with rat poison and moustraps, and... 

Getting closer. The spotlight beams of halogen flashlights scoured the night for her presence, and those noses weren't to be fouled by a evening mist and exhaust fumes and conveniently placed shadow o' the modern urban landscape. 

Getting closer. On your trail now, girl. This sound familiar luv? Cept last time this happened, there was less jail and more you being a little kid and no Serge and where the _hel_l could he be? She was already all over the news and rubbish by now, according to the screen things they'd had in that lobby place, and there were helicopters and the like. Serge hadn't ever been too up on killing stuff that could talk to you - well, neither was Kid, mind - but if he was around he'd at least've taken down a helicopter for her. Right? Right? He wasn't that easily confused, right? He'd been slow on the uptake with that whole dimension bit, but he'd managed beautifully after awhile, and he wouldn't get too thrown off by all the substances and devices and such that just sorta floated to the forefront of her mind like foam when she needed it to, right? 

Yanking a soiled blanket, half-invisible in the orangey substitute for a nonexistant moonlight, away from the mumbling old bastard with the greasy beard was easy. So was covering herself with it to make the scent, to stop herself from retchin', and huddlin' to the wall. 

Nothing to it. The more things change - like men in uniforms tromping about with big vicious animals, persuing hapless Kids through the street over matters what didn't concern 'em, - the more they stayed the same. 

Yeah. 

Right. 

Problem here being that in this time there were so many of them it was like solider ants swarming the place, that she was gonna be under this blanket twenty bleedin' years if she wanted to wait this out. 

Hearing the pad and the military tromping pass by, and noting that the old looney was starting to tug at her disguise in a not too appeizin' way, the fugitive took off. Unconciously swerving right and left, here and there, through the back passages and in the foliage-laden darkness that the city's bare allowance of nature produced. Heading nowhere, which was where he was, and where her body seemed to be taking her without thinking, since a daughter of Lavos has gotta survival instinct above all, doesn't she? 

The place she'd never thought of (but the spawn had - the spawn was wily and ancient and lived in the planes of the unconcious where the half-fragment of its soul could dream away exile from apparent corporeality). The safest place on earth. Cuddled up to the tumor itself like a security blanket. Home sweet malignant home ten years before the surgery hit. 

The Underground. 

*** 

Fact #3 - There's no bloody way I'm finding Serge here, and it makes me feel like causing severe bodily harm to something. Or panicking. Panicking is good. Bloody hell! Does no one ever get a bloody happy ending in this stupid story? I ain't asked for much, really, just to not get amnesia all the time or be part o' a big giant space bug, and maybe see me little brother once n' a while. Nothin' unreasonable all things considered - being as how I've got this habit of saving the universe an' all. But nope. That ain't in the cards for you, gel, because fate is a right bitch. Nothin' for you but a deranged loony on your tail and and your best mate up some creek Lavos knows where... 

I'd be kinda depressed - me, the indomitable Kid Zeal - if I had time to think about it. Schala'd be depressed. And... oh, blast it. I _am_ being depressed. Snap the hell out of it! 

Anyways, fact is the if he hasn't come round and that witch Harle hasn't found him, he's likely not here. Bugger all. 

Fact #4 - I've been alone for fourteen thousand years, I have.. or eight, if that's how you wanna look at it. And M'tired. Tired of feeling like there's nothing else out there - like existance is just black and black and black and bubbles I can only look into like looking-glass moresels prepped for the kill. I don't even got revenge anymore, do I, so there's no Lynx for me to chase... there's nothing. And this is stupid and weak, and foolish, and NOT the indomitable Kid Zeal... 

Thsi is one hundred percent Schala Zeal, and the Ashtear don't like it one bit. 

But I'm just so _tired_. The _one_ time I find someone who might remotely understand how fucked up my existance is (other than me brother, of course, an' I better tyke out o' this if he doesn't wanna get hurt), and they up and disappear like the rest of 'em. What's the use of being the indomitable Kid Zeal if nobody else is indomitable an' your stuck wanderin' about doing jack all like stome stupid sad homeless wench? It's easier when you just got the mission - the hunger for bloody or energy or that pulsin' lava in the earth. That's straightforward, mate. And there ain't much _ever_ been straitforward to yours truly. 

*** 

"Hallo 'Dad'," Kid's boot scuffed at the ground beneath her. She was, at the moment, somewhere deep beneath the streets of New Porre City. There was yelling somehwere behind her - apparently someone was trying to get a service car running - but she'd taken care of any immediate persuit with a blst of flame to the wiring that ran by the tracks. Heh. Bloody computers never knew what hit 'em. At'd show them for having an automated system. 

She was also running a bit faster and feeling a bit better. Well, as well as completely and totally without remorse for having grabbed an unopened chocolate bar from a small child during the short rampage through the subway station which had preceeded her jogging off into the tunnels. Confusion was bad, but chocolate was always good. An' acting like that (she could see the headlines of the 'morrow already: "Mad Arsonist Prostitute Steals Candy and uses Voodoo Powers to Blow Up Control Station. Also, Alien Baby Born to Bearcow in Guardia") made her feel all closer to her family. Kinda like being underground did. Which was prolly all connected, if she thought about it, which she didn't. 

"Ever-so pleasant to sense you again," and the power was strong - radiating upwards to energize the mass of humanity above. Its children. 'Course, she was its child too.. but in a more literal sense. Oi. Wait until Serge heard about _that_ one. Like a bloody comic book, they were. The Adventures o' Serge and Kid : the Assassin of Time and the 1/3 Parasitic Space Bug. 

"This is all your fault, you know!" the aforementioned 1/3 Space Bug glared down a the ground, which she was also feeling an uncomfortable urge to lick. Her English was for once unaccented - Schala Zeal was the one with the huge Parasitic Space Bug issues, not Kid. "If you'd left well enough alone all of this would be fine!" 

Lavos didn't seem intent on responding. Not that she'd ever met the chap. Feh. Fathers were deadbeats, the lot of them (except of course for her poor deceased father, a white knight likely the victim of Queen Zeal's cruel whims). 

In spite of this, the lifeforce beneath her feet fairly _thrummed_ with interest. 

"Bet you just want me to get rid of Harle, eh mate? I know how your kind thinks." 

It thouht in terms of oblivion. That she knew well. And she could destory Harle, once and for all, leave her nothing but a shell. Stupid... arrrg. She was nothing. She was opposite and nothing and she deserved to be destoryed. it all did. And then everything would be perfect because... 

Oh, hell. 

"I'm not playing that game, do you hear me?" it was damn in here - and cold. But as her attire suggested, Kid Zeal could feel warm whenever she pleased. Mmm. Her blood, the center of the earth - those would be _hot_. Like a nice sauna. 

But... 

Guess the whole Schala conscience thing might be useful after all. 

"She's needed, y'see. To keep a balance between them and us. D'you understand Lavos? I happen to like this world. It goes to hell and I'll never find Serge if he's in the future tense." 

Except that sounded really selfish. The closer she was to Lavos, the more she felt like... 

Well that didn't matter. She'd figure it out after the Serge-rescuing. Right. Gotta keep on the ball here. Was that an explosion she just felt? Bollocks. Harle'd probably blocked off the one side to trap her in. Cornered like a bloody _rat_. 

Kid did not like to be cornered. it did not feel like fire, or warmth, but _burning_. 

Then the smoke came. All around her... stupid.. arg! It was not gonna make her cry. Those human blokes thought they could smoke her out, eh? And Harle'd be _waiting_. 

Well let 'em try. Just let those bastards try.   


*** 

Fact #5 - Getting what Schala (errr.. I) did - _really_ getting it - scares the shit outta me. When I was Schala I didn't get the value of indominability, and in the end that screwed me an' the brother up royally, didn't it? 

Oi! I'm royalty now. Real high-class. Beauty. 

Fact #6 - So it's decided then. I gotta find him for me own sanity and since you just gotta know that he's buggered without me (it's nice to think that someone would be buggered without me - Schala'd've gone all gushy by now. It's all warm and fuzzy-like.. sorta like takin' a steam-bath in the earth's core and then eating your way out. A big warm yummy marshmallow bath). Easier said than done, but that's the new mission. You can't dispute the facts, mate. They're indomitable too. 

Fact #7 - It was settled a long time ago. Schala'd think - and I agree, bein' _her _and all - that if you can find someone who'll switch over dimensions and jaunt through the timestream to save your arse, you damn well better go save theirs. Errr.. assuming it needs saving. Which I'm gonna, since I've got no bloody clue whatsoever where he is, an he's all helpless by himself, poor bloke. 

Fact #8 - I really ought to be thinking more about the insane dragonite chasin' me, oughtn't I? 

*** 

"You are lost, ma chere?" 

Or not. 

A figure in the distance. A figure headed towards her natural, mortal enemy. Making herself the hard place to the wall of roch and pavement that had crumbled behind her foe. "Zut allors. It eez, how do you say - distresssssing." 

And she was dropping the accent too - going sibilant and darker. Serpent in the depths. 

"What do you want, Harle?" 

That had seemed like something to say, when she choked it out. Harle's eyes were hidden in the mists and what was probably a gas mask. 

Maybe, though, she already knew what the Dragon was thinking. 

Harle gave a chiding tisk with her forked tongue. Without that stupid hat the large horns she sported became very apparent. "Ah, no. That.... iss not the question, 'cherie'. What iss more interesssting to me iss why you were sstupid enough to come here." 

"You crazy bint," with a wave of her hand, Kid sent a Bushwasker spell reeling through the corridor to get rid of the tear gas. A touch of water still pricked her eyes. "I dunno what you're talking about. Just lemme out of here and we're good, alright?" 

"Why would I do that? I underssstand now. You lied to me. You've sssuffered nothing!" A bolt of lightning crackled through the tracks, sending Kid sprawling. The advance was inexocrable. Harle too was ancient, and the ages infused her with something Kid had never seen before. "How long hasss it been for you? Just a day? A week maybe? Did it take you even a moth to sssskip all that time? You deserve nothing, Lavos-Spawn. I am the one who hass waited. The one who's been denied! You made a promissse to me, and you _lied_." 

Righting herself with a groan, Kid blinked a thought into existance. 

"You've been alive all this time, haven't you? Makin' sure the demi-humans made it through instead of dyin'? That's why there's no domes in this dimension anymore, innit? I never left the united timestream." 

The shrouded stare said yes. Luckily, the lightning bolt had started some squatter's trash on fire. She hoped he wasn't still in there. 

"And you haven't seen 'im, have you?" the smirk, working its way through unfamilkiar cheeks, slowly made it's way up to her eyes. 

"_Of course_ I haven't... wait, you know?" 

"I do now." 

"Then...." 

"I haven't been lookin' for him at all, Harle," Kid mocked. "But I guess I know where I gotta go to do so, eh? Thanks for taking a few millenia offa my list." 

".... I, no! Unnatural thing. Thiss stops here." 

It was then that the cadre of gunmen behind the Dragon made them selves apparent. Police. Fucking _police_. 

"Oh really? Luv the posturing, Harle, but this ends on my terms." 

It was almost... funny. 

Hah! Cornered like a bloody fish in the bloody sea was more like it. Stupid wench. Nobody beat her! Nobody! Poor Harle - always second best to the maginificent Kid Zeal, eh? Mother Earth was weak. Like a big giant apple just waiting for the worm. Fat lot of good powers giveg to you by a big, giant, wormy apples are gonna do. 

"Coz if I've ben runnin' about the time stream, that means that this place must be temporally weak for me to have done that in the first place..." you didn't spend millennia eating dimensions without knowing a few things about the malleability of time streams. "Really ought to work on your villainous cliches to scream at me, though." 

Er, a villain that saved the world's air quality apparently. But she wasn't gonna think about that. Not while there was still some fleetin' daydream running about her skull where destorying the world seemed like a bloody good idea right about now. Serge'd help her fix that, right? That's what best mates are for, the curbin' of the ol' xenocidal impulses. 

Though it would be so _pretty_.... they could watch it together an'... 

"I'll see you.. sometime."   


*** 

Fact#9 - Harle seemed to know what was going on, sorta. Well, more'n I, which aint' saying much but you've gotta go with what you're given. Said I cheated her somehow. That I've been looking for him... travelling through time, wasn't it? That was? Oi! That's it! 

Fact #10 - Harle said she ain't seen him, and Harle's been living in the linear timestream. Meaning he's somewhere back before her or after right now - somewhere I gotta _get_. Harle's also bloody pissed at me, because of something I don't remember doing, which means I did do it in the past.. where Serge ain't, but maybe the _way_ to Serge is. 

Fact #11 - Lavos save me, I think I know how to do this. 

Fact #12 - Lavos _save_ me? I am so buggered. Bugger bugger bugger. Bugger all. Now I've even gotta conscience 'bout using _real_ curses, which is just blod- um, 'really' stupid. _Really stupid_. 

*** 

Not caring where she went, yet liking the renewed feeling of control this was giving her, Kid Zeal raised her astral amulet and vanished into thin air. 

The soldiers gaped as expected. Madamoiselle Arcange "Harlequin" de la Septieme, fortunately, didn't have much of a problem with obliterating their worthless Lavos-tainted bodies. 


End file.
